How can we say that MSI and Gigabyte are Tier 2 mobo, sorry but I totally disagree with this. When ever I build a PC, my first two mobo's that get first prefernce are MSI and Gigabyte.
Also I've heard from a few shop vendors here in Melbourne, Australia that Asus has dropped alot if quality control, and this is what has given them a slightly bad name.
I've always found MSI boards to be rich in features and value for money, infact even more so than any Asus board.
I've got MSI and Gigabyte boards in all my 5 PC's here and all work excellent.
Also lets not forget that MSI is the usual number 1 choice for refernce mobo when a company needs to do a testing on something or like a new product.